PORT WELSHPOOL
What a great month of fishing its been so far! Let's start at Corner Inlet: Its full blown summer now and we have enjoyed those typical January strong winds haven't we. In all seriousness, the last week has actually been pretty damn good and these been plenty of days that we can all get offshore for a fish. First thing I'm going to talk about is the kingfish. WHAT A FISHERY WE HAVE! We have legit meter plus kingies in good numbers. Fish in excess of 10KG and even some that almost seem unlandable wit anglers getting reefed on 24kg. The fish have been caught via multiple methods from trolling skirted lures, trolling live squid and slimey mackeral to jigging and casting stick-baits. With all the kingfish offshore from corner inlet, I'm just waiting for a Blue-fin Tuna report. We have all seen the amount being caught out of Western-port and Port Phillip, its only a matter of time till someone brings one into the welshpool boat ramp.

OK enough of the kingies, the gummy sharks are in good numbers off welshpool with the 20m line producing plenty and there are some good ones further around to Mcloughlins in 15-21m as well. There's stacks of bait around at the moment out wide as well, so if you need livies, just drop down a berley bomb and drift and you will have slimey mackeral coming from far and wide.

Inside the inlet, the snapper had a brief flurry again ,with the Franklin channel producing big snapper to 8kg during the run in tide on squid. The pinkies are going much better and there's been good numbers of pinkies to 45cm in the Toora, top of the Franklin and in the entrance near number 6 and 4 buoys.

The only disappointing thing about the fishing lately is the whiting season. Its pretty dismal with most anglers only managing up to half a dozen fish, not many are getting there bag limit. The one saving grace is that the whiting that are being caught are big. They are mainly getting caught in the Lewis channel in Corner Inlet, but Port Albert is doing better around the basket beacon and snake channel, and there's a few down at mcloughlins beach as well. Bass yabbies have definitely been the best baits for the ting, but pippis and squid are getting a few as well.

Lastly we have a prawn season happening again which is great to see as we had none last year. South gippy is producing some good sized prawns and the gippy lakes is producing stacks of bait sized parents and some really big eaters swell and it's only gonna get better with each moon.

We had a cracking session on the kingfish off Welshpool the other day. I was lucky enough to hook this 10kg kingy whilst trolling our kingy cruncher lures. Went 103cm on the mat. The Penn Slammer 3 Reel handled it perfectly. The 30lb Shimano Kariki Braid was unreal too.

Wrighty with a 92cm, kingy caught on a kingy cruncher trolled in 24m of water.

Kev Buhagiar with some awesome soundings taken from around Wilsons Prom this week. This are schools of kingfish. Below is the results using Live Arrow Squid.

Some big Kingies caught by Kev Buhagiar measuring almost a meter long taken out of these schools of kings pictured above. Live Arrow Squid proving here to be one of the best methods of catching large kings! Top fish mate and even better doing it all solo.

We have received our second shipment of Ultimate Squids with the first shipment selling out in 5 minutes. I had a chance to use these lures a couple of days ago. I stayed up for a few hours the night before thinking of the best way to rig these, so finally i ended up, routing out a whole through the centre using a rigging needle. I then placed a size 4 Barrel sinker inside the body. Took a bit but went in eventually. I then just threaded the 60lb leader through the hole the needle made passing through the sinker as well. I used a swivel to space the hook just below the legs. I just used a black magic 4/0 live bait hook but you could use any heavy duty non offset hook, in a 4/0-6/0 id say. After trolling it for a bit, i found trolling around the 8 knot mark made the squid stay high and skip along the surface every now and again, which was fine and still caught kingies. But trolling slower around the 3-4 knots made it sink down which is good and will be extremely effective once you have found fish and want to slow troll through them! Anyways a took a photo below to show you the results and how i rigged it. Ill be using these again this week and will be trying all the colors and different speeds and weights.

Chasebaits Ultimate squid first test! Worked a treat.

Darren Clarke with a stonking big Gummy caught yesterday in 20m of water off welshpool. Too make this fish even better...Clarky caught this beast on a 4kg setup with 12lb line meant for a pinky. It took an hour to land.

Lynton Grant got this pleasant surprise while he was snapper fishing the Franklin channel the other week, when a kingy decided to jump on the end of his line. A school of kings ended busting all around the boat and Lynton caught a heap using micro jigs and stickbaits.

Wellsy had a cracking session landing a stack of Snapper to 2kg and some massive flatties as well.

PORT ALBERT TO MCLOUGHLINS

Joel and Stuey had a cracking day at Port Albert landing 8 big whiting to 46cm. Top effort during a slow whiting season.

Russ and Dave had a cracking session 2 days ago at Port Albert landing 20 whiting, some flathead and a flounder. This is the best haul ive seen from around here this season.

90 MILE BEACH

Ray Pickering and crew had an awesome session fishing the surf at loch Sport bagging out on gummy sharks and landing some cracking flathead as well. White grub plastics doing the damage, yes even on the gummies!

A swag of flathead from last week caught at Mcloughlins beach on high tide on surf poppers and blue bait.

CENTRAL GIPPSLAND (FRESHWATER)

I was lucky enough to have a fish with Paul Landmeter of Brave Rods at Blue Rock a few weeks back. He put me onto some good fish in the snags. This one measuring 36cm and caught on a Tiemco Soft Shell cicada lure.

Josh Smith has been catching some cracking Bas out of Blue Rock lately on fly. This one taking a liking to a Bass Vampire caught in the morning. Floating Line still!

Frazer Ryan has mastered the art of Carp on lures. I had a fish with Fraser a few weeks ago and i watched him sight fish this Carp and catch it on a River2sea baby vibe. One hell of a fight on light gear and a bit of fun whilst waiting for Bass O'Clock!

Mason Lont with a beautiful High Country Trout caught a few weeks ago in hot conditions. Check out the marking on it! You don't see brown trout looking like that too often. Unreal!

Jase with a cracking stream caught Bass. Doesn't get much better than that.